Depending on the season and what type of food I buy, I generally do a big shop at the supermarket every two weeks or so. The odd items will need to be topped up of course, especially in the summer as fresh produce obviously doesn’t last as long as tinned, packet or frozen.

Most often nowadays I’ll use on line shopping. Sit there on your computer, clicking away with your mouse, adding items to your virtual basket, UK Lion Rock Mart : United Kingdom Oriental Supermarket picking a delivery date, confirming your order and your shopping is delivered to your door. You only have to pack it away in your kitchen.

There’s no travel involved, no hunting around the car park, battling with ignorant people who always think they ‘own’ a particular spot. there’s no wandering around the isles with the wobbly trolley from hell, and you don’t have to put up with those people who block the aisle with their trolleys and give you the evil eye if you dare to say ‘excuse me please.’

Even without the stress of the supermarkets, they are convenient, they’re packed with almost everything you could want, under one roof. The larger ones now even sell furniture and electrical items, so you can pick up a new PC or Plasma TV with your litre of milk and box of organic free-range eggs. The supermarket is impersonal. There’s a certain anonymity to shopping in one of the great big hangars of produce. There is a thought/attitude of ‘I just want to get in, get my shopping and leave. I don’t want to be hassled.’

Supermarkets do provide a service, and in this stressful, busy world we now live in, it has become an invaluable service.